Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight
The jury could not reach a verdict resulting in a mistrial in the Duenas murder case today in Shasta County Superior Court.

Karen Duenas

Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight
Family members of both Mark and Karen Duenas console each other after talking to the media after the jury could not reach a verdict resulting in a mistrial in the Duenas murder case today in Shasta County Superior Court.

After polling jurors and hearing each of them say they were "hopelessly deadlocked," Shasta County Superior Court Judge Bradley Boeckman declared a mistrial in the Mark Gilbert Duenas murder trial just after noon today.

Deputy District Attorney Eamon Fitzgerald asked for a retrial and it was scheduled for Oct. 1.

Jurors said they were split 9-3 in favor of acquittal.

The trial collapsed on the third day of deliberations after a trial that lasted only six days. Earlier this morning the jurors had reported they were deadlocked, but after some additional instruction Boeckman sent them back to continue deliberations.

Duenas, 53, was accused of murdering his wife, Karen, 51, in their Cottonwood home in May 2012.

During the trial prosecutor Fitzgerald had argued Mark Duenas was unhappy in his marriage and fatally stabbed his wife of 33 years in a state of "inner-personal rage."

"You know the defendant murdered Karen Duenas in her bed," Fitzgerald said in closing arguments last week. "The evidence is screaming at you."

Investigators never recovered the murder weapon, but insisted Mark Duenas admitted he killed his wife on a taped telephone call to emergency dispatchers.

Powell told jurors the prosecution, which he repeatedly called "the government," failed miserably in proving his client guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

He introduced witnesses who described the couple as happy and suggested an intruder had broken into the house a stabbed Karen Duenas as she slept.

Saying the prosecution's case was based on speculation, assumptions and theory without any solid evidence, Powell also contended sheriff's investigators ignored and overlooked possible leads and other evidence that would have exonerated his client.

Those potential leads, such as a speeding car spotted driving away from the Duenas neighborhood, did not fit the puzzle they had pieced together, Powell said.

"It's time to hold the government accountable," he said. "They didn't deliver."